Maybe This is How Skynet Started

Nobody wanted it to be accurate. Contradictory to everything that bracketology represents -- speculation, scouting, team loyalty, soothsaying -- the Coin-Flip Algorithm also doubled-down on the suckage by predicting Duke would win it all. That's like picking Johnny to beat Daniel-san or rooting for Clue Heywood to go yard on Ricky Vaughn in the playoffs.

But there it is. After sixty-three brutal games (the play-in game wasn't included), the Coin-Flip bracket claimed a dominant second-place finish in the office pool amid thirty-six entrants. Earning 109 total points, the bracket was only three points shy of first place but a full twenty-six ahead of third place.

Highlights included the prediction of St Mary's over Villanova in the second round and early exists by Kansas, Syracuse, and Ohio State. Lowlights abounded -- Oklahoma State in the Final Four? Florida State in the Regional Final? -- but the math still wins. CBS evidently doesn't track how many entries they received overall (WTF?) but ESPN estimates a staggering 4.78 million brackets were submitted. The Coin-Flip bracket's ranking worldwide: 27,279^th (That's fifty-three points behind the overall winner, a grizzled old sports guru named "PrettyBritt3", who likely reasoned that actual devils could kill actual bulldogs. NTTAWWT.)

The only portion of the Coin-Flip method that relied on pure prognostication was the tie-breaking final-game, final-score total. I predicted 119 points; the score was 61-59.

Missed it by that much.